


midnight ephemera

by arkvdy



Category: Lifeline (Video Game 2015)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Car Accidents, F/M, Hallucinations, POV Second Person, i intentionally gave her a gender ambiguous name, i wrote MC as a girl but there are no pronouns so you are free to interpret however you'd like, i'm tagging those just in case you know.... you don't like reading about those things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 08:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11688072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkvdy/pseuds/arkvdy
Summary: The first night, you sit at the kitchen table for hours, fiercely happy and yet devastated beyond words. You grip the comm with both hands, staring at his last words, and feel carved out from the inside.The feeling doesn’t leave you for several days.





	midnight ephemera

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerwoodsmoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerwoodsmoke/gifts).



It’s been a month without contact. Life has settled into a normalcy just short of forgetting; though the thought of him doesn’t come up as often as it did the days immediately after he blipped off on the screen of your comm, everything feels just a bit brighter. Everything feels a bit more vibrant than it used to be.

You find yourself wondering about him at the oddest times: as you’re brushing your teeth, as you microwave last night’s leftovers, as you head outside for a run. You can’t think of the snow anymore without him in it, scrambling up an ice-glazed hill or curled up and shivering with only a flare to warm him. And then, there are the dreams.

Having never seen him, your brain doesn’t know what to make of him, and so he remains a shadowy half-person every time he shows up. All you know is his voice, by turns desperate, afraid, grateful—and so, so alive. This is what you remember, and this is what heralds your mornings. Sometimes, it is the last thing you hear before you sleep.

Isn’t it strange, you think to yourself, that I knew him for only three days and yet the memory of him is like a friend or a brother. Isn’t it strange that a being with no history can captivate me so much that it feels as if _he_ is more human than me.

You’re drifting off again. You drum your fingers on the desk to keep awake, then put on some rousing music. It’s a quiet Friday, and a productive one, you hope. You canceled your dinner plans to stay at home and have a little time to yourself.

Except your comm starts ringing.

And it’s a number you don’t recognize, but you let yourself believe that it’s him, if only for a moment.

Heart pounding, you pick it up and almost drop it, then steady yourself. Shakily, you reach to accept the transmission.

**Incoming communication request.**

**Connecting.**

**Speech to text protocol initiated.**

**Link activated.**

* * *

 

**_It’s… It’s me. Adams._ **

**_I hope I’ve found the right person. I’m calling you from a different device – don’t ask me how I found you. This is a pre-recorded message, so think of it like a letter. I’m sorry; for your own safety you can’t know where I am or where I’m headed._ **

**_I just wanted to tell you that I’m okay. Blue is with me and I can’t tell you where we are just in case Sibelius is still listening, but we’re in a safe place. We’re still in a cold place, but a safe place. Mostly, my days are filled with nature walks. To be honest, it’s not a bad life. I much prefer it to the jumpsuits and technology in the Doctor’s so-called experiment. At least I know all of this – the trees, the animals, the hunger – is real._ **

**_I think that’s all I have to say for now. Just that I’m okay and I’m keeping on. I hate to do this, but I think I’m going to cut this transmission short. It’s still risky leaving it open for too long, and I still don’t know exactly how I was being tracked before. They could still have an eye (or an ear) on me._ **

**_Maybe I can check in with you every so often. Don’t want to make it too regular, though. I’m going to trust you’re listening… in which case, thanks for listening._ **

**_You… you’ve been really good to me. I’ll never forget that._ **

**_Adams out._ **

* * *

 

You’ve taken to Googling aimlessly when you’re at work, punching the same queries into the search box again and again in an almost Freudian display of fixation. “V.Adams,” you try. “ALT.” “ALT acronym.” “Doctor Sibelius.”

Nothing comes up, of course. There are pages of irrelevant nonsense, strangers’ blogs, roleplay forums, official-looking jargon. Nothing that gives away the existence of an experimental facility devoted to creating artificial life. But you can’t bring yourself to stop. Day after day, your fingers drift over the same keys, and by this point Google knows you well enough to autocomplete all of your searches.

You are losing control of your thoughts, of his impact on your life. It has been a week since you heard from Adams, and you haven’t slept properly since then, haven’t been able to concentrate.

What if he’s in trouble?

What if he’s dead?

What if he needs help? You don’t like that idea.

What if he… doesn’t? You’re not sure you like that idea either.

Saturday finds you ensconced in a cocoon of blankets and dirty laundry, curled up in bed. You’re not being productive, exactly, even though you have the program you’re supposed to be writing on the screen, and are dutifully scrolling through the thousands of lines of text. You keep one eye on your comm all the time now, even though you know his messages won’t come that fast.

Your mind, however, is on the doctor. Sibelius is a strange name, and a unique one. The only person you know with that name is the composer, Jean Sibelius, and he is long dead. There is also the music composing software. Surely none of this has to do with the doctor in question?

You Google again just to be sure. And again. And again. You wrack your brains for an explanation, anything that might bring you closer to Adams. And then you realize something so obvious it’s been staring you in the face the entire time: there is no reason Dr. Sibelius would have given his real name or the real name of his organization to one of his test subjects.

It’s fake. The name is fake, and the initials of the facility are a red herring.

Which means you will have to find his location the hard way.

And you’ll need help.

* * *

 

**_Hello, Friend. It’s Adams again._ **

**_I’m hanging out in the wilderness, so I can talk a little longer this time. Did you know there are gigantic trees up here? They’re probably why the signal’s so bad._ **

**_I guess that means, technically, something good did come of being subjected to the Doc’s crazy experiment. This place is like a leisurely camping spot in comparison. Sure, there aren’t conveniently placed tools, but I’m close enough to a town that I can nick something if I need to. It turns out that I don’t need to, actually. Someone like me doesn’t need much. I guess that’s a blessing and a curse, isn’t it?_ **

**_The only thing I have to complain about is the loneliness. I’m embarrassed even saying this because, well, I have my life and my safety, so what more could I want? I even have you, in a sense. But it doesn’t feel like enough. I wish I could meet real people. I wish I could see them. I wish I could talk to them face to face._ **

**_Yesterday, when I laid down to sleep, I realized I could see the stars through the trees. I could even recognize some of the constellations from when I was stuck in the tundra. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was like each of those twinkling bright lights was a voice in the dark, reaching out to make sure I didn’t feel alone. It was like the universe heard me. Like I reached out a hand and someone, somewhere, managed to catch it and hold on._ **

**_They say that the first few years of a child’s life are crucial for language and social development. As a freak of nature, I’ve got the first one down pat, but not the second. I have a tremendous vocabulary – I indexed it in all my spare time and it comes out to about 30,000 words – but I’ve never met a single human being who isn’t the Doctor. He’s the only person I’ve seen who isn’t…_ ** **me** **_. And even he, in a sense,_ ** **is** **_me._ **

**_Which brings me to another point: destiny. Sometimes I remember things, even though I know they’re not my memories. I remember a tricycle tipped over in the street, and a sharp pain from a blow to my left cheek, and a dog that looks like Blue but isn’t. I keep having these dreams… In them, I’m someone else. I look the same – at least, I think I do – but I have a family, a neighborhood, colleagues and friends I’ve never met. For a few hours at a time, I live a life that isn’t mine. And then I wake up in a cold sweat, because I know whose life it is and I don’t want it to happen and—_ **

**_I’m afraid of becoming like him. Maybe I’m overthinking it. I’d say I need some air, but I’ve got plenty of air up here. What I need is someone to talk to._ **

**_I guess I’ll… see you later. See is in air-quotes._ **

**_Adams out._ **

* * *

 

You’re with Neo when you see it.

The TV’s on but neither of you are watching; it’s just a habit at his place to keep it running, as if it’s substitute chatter for the people who aren’t there. He told you once that it helps him concentrate, which you don’t believe, but you let it slide.

“Any luck?” you toss over your shoulder, grabbing another cup of coffee. Neo’s on the couch with a number of dental-looking tools on the coffee table, his netbook open on one side and running a program that’s made the screen go dark with glowing blue text. Your comm is connected to it with an antiquated cable, blinking lazily. He surveys the configuration and starts typing in short bursts.

“No,” he says, belatedly, without looking up. “But ask me again in an hour.”

You go sit down next to him. In the seven years you’ve known him, you’ve never seen a single tech-related issue he couldn’t solve. That’s why you’ve asked him to trace the location of the messages you got from Adams. That, and, you know he’s not the type to ask questions. You’ve told him you’re trying to find a long-lost relative, and you’ll return the favor someday. That’s all he needs. There is an understanding between the two of you, an unspoken but mutual need for distance, that you find more comfortable than with anyone else.

He’s got your comm, so you track down the remote and start flicking through the channels. Celebrities battle in lip-sync parodies. _Click._ Cooking show. _Click._ Lifetime TV movie. _Click_. The news.

_And now, a developing story. Renowned Finnish psychobiologist Pyry Takala has admitted to illegal experimentation with artificial life forms. Takala, who is forty-five years old and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last spring, voluntarily confessed to running a covert research facility in Alaska with funding collected for the purpose of studying stem-cell growth. The doctor claimed he wanted to “transplant consciousness” by creating an organic vessel and transferring his consciousness into the new body. He has alerted the authorities of an escaped “project” – an organic android named “Adams Five.”_

The screen switches to a clip of Takala talking. He looks awful; his skin is yellow and taut around his cheekbones, and the circles underneath his eyes are especially pronounced in the harsh fluorescent lighting.

 _“It was my fault_ ,” he’s saying as the audio cuts in. “ _It was hubris. Arrogance. I wanted to cheat my fate. Look at me. Only forty-five and looking like a corpse. I just wanted a few more years with my daughters. If you were in my place, wouldn’t you do the same?”_

The audio fades out as the news anchor takes over again, her expression appropriately somber.

_Due to his condition, Dr. Takala is being held custody in a hospital. His research facility is being investigated as we speak, and a SWAT team has been dispatched to look for the missing android. He leaves us with a grave warning._

_“Do not trust it. I beg of you. It may seem human, but it is not. It is a machine, capable of anything. It has no heart, no conscience. I should know; I made dozens of them.”_ He sucks down a breath with difficulty. _“I did not make them to have thoughts or feelings; that was a side effect. But I have observed them destroying each other again and again. I allowed them to interact only because I wanted to see how they might communicate – like human beings? Like computers? Would they have the ability to learn? Instead, they killed each other.”_

He pauses before looking into the camera with newfound intensity. His eyes nearly bulge with the effort.

_“Adams Five, if you’re watching this: it is only a matter of time before they catch you. I offered you the chance to be part of something greater but you refused… I cannot be responsible for whatever happens to you now. Goodbye.”_

Your hands have gone numb, and you realize that you’re clutching your mug so tightly that your knuckles are white. You put down the coffee before you drop it and find Neo looking at you, his fingers at a standstill on the keyboard.

“What?” you snap.

“You’re shaking,” he points out, and goes back to work.

You exhale and turn off the TV, toss the remote onto the cushion next to you. A moment passes, the silence so absolute that you can hear the hum of fridge in the next room.

“So you’re going android-hunting.”

You swallow. “You could say that.”

“I was hoping you’d call me crazy for even suspecting it.”

You’re not sure what to say, so you say nothing.

Finally, Neo says: “Just tell me this, Haru. Am I doing the right thing?”

“I don’t know if it’s, uh, technically legal—”

“I don’t care if it’s legal. I just want you to tell me if it’s right.”

You try to read his expression but decide it’s impossible.

“I don’t know,” you say truthfully. “It feels right to me.”

Neo looks you square in the eye. Very slowly, he leans toward you, and his gaze goes left-right left-right as if he’s reading. When he sits up straight, he seems satisfied.

“You can go home,” he says. “I’m gonna be a while.”

* * *

 

**_Adams here._ **

**_I know. It’s been a while. I hope you weren’t worried about me. I didn’t mean to ghost on you, it’s just…_ **

**_I’m on the outskirts of some small town. I really don’t know where. It’s probably north, but less north than before because I’m hardly ever cold. Or maybe that means the seasons are changing. Or that I’m dying. I can’t tell._ **

**_Um, that was a joke. Sorry._ **

**_I…_ **

**_[muffled] how do I say this, getting harder to separate between these visions… and… and what’s really in front of me. To be precise, I don’t know_ ** **which** **_is in front of me because they look the same, and neither is clearer or brighter than the other…_ **

**_Does that make sense? I wish I could rewind and listen to what I just said. [sigh] Let me just tell you what happened… I’ll trust you to parse it._ **

**_Yesterday morning while I was walking south I suddenly lost my sense of self. One moment there were the snow and the evergreens, and the next there was a car swerving and hitting something in the street, a scream of tires, a sickening sound of metal hitting meat. I ran towards the sound but it wasn’t I who ran; it was… it was something else going forward and bringing me with the force of its momentum. Blood ran slick on the pavement – a small, pale body rested there, already too still, the overturned tricycle still spinning its wheels emptily in the sky._ **

**_A whirl of colors overwhelmed me; never had everything been so fast and so slow at the same time. A dog rushed at me – my dog – barking and jumping, then whining inconsolably. It faded out of my mind’s eye quickly because then a woman – my mother – approached me, and even in the body that wasn’t mine I could only look up at her without feeling, study her blotchy, contorted face knowing that I would be punished. She screamed and hit me, started shouting at a man in a brown coat who hadn’t been there a moment before._ **

**_I ran away from the scene and into the woods. But there weren’t any woods in the… vision… They were… I was… When I came to… I was running through the snow with the sun high in the sky. Blue was nowhere to be found. Behind me were footsteps leading back for what could have been miles. Cold dread shivered down my spine._ **

**_I didn’t know what else to do, so I retraced my steps. With the unchanging scenery around me, I couldn’t be sure where I had started that morning, but I hoped that if I could just go back far enough, I’d find Blue waiting for me. All the while, I could barely keep upright, I was shaking so hard. What if it happened again? What if I closed my eyes a moment too long and the car returned, the boy in the pool of blood, the screaming mother and the man in the brown coat? I didn’t know what I feared more: losing time in this world or spending time in that one. Worst of all, there was no seam between them, no transition or separation. The car really did almost hit me while I was walking in the snow. I really did run from the street straight into the woods. Or… or, so I thought. The only reason I believe they are two realities superimposed atop one another is because for them to be the_ ** **same** **_one is… impossible._ **

**_Right? It’s impossible, right?_ **

**_Oh, what am I saying. Of course it’s impossible. Ugh, if this device were just a little more high-tech I’d erase that last part. I doubt my sanity enough without making you doubt it too._ **

**_Anyway… I didn’t find Blue. I ended up walking maybe twenty miles like that, hands shoved in my pockets and shoulders hunched. Eventually, I calmed down enough to stop shaking, though I was on edge for the rest of the day. I must’ve walked back and forth along that trail at least a dozen times looking for him, but no luck. How far did I go while I was… in a trance? What was I doing? Did I… do anything to him? No; that’s too horrible to think about. I must have been walking too fast for him to keep up._ **

**_I decided to head south first. It’s a maze out here and I’m bound to get lost if I don’t find my anchor points. Last night I made it to this town; today I’ll retrace my steps again. I’m losing hope, you know… If you were here you’d definitely say the right thing. I could use a friend with me out here. [laughter or crying?] [muffled] without you. Is it weird to miss someone you’ve never met? Is it weird to… I don’t know…_ **

* * *

 

You start dropping by Neo’s place without warning, at first once every few days and then with increasing frequency. He doesn't say anything about it, but you can feel his resentment growing, his desire to retreat from you and your demands. It’s making you anxious and unhappy in turn. Guilty, too. You can’t help it; you understand, deep in your heart, that this is too important, that Adams is too important to give up in the name of good manners.

It unsettles you, what you’re willing to give up for this man you don’t know. An organic android.

The sixth weekend since you first asked Neo for help, you get a call. You scramble for the comm still half awake, and realize as you do that it’s one in the afternoon.

“I got it,” Neo says excitedly, as soon as you pick up. “I found the coordinates and I’m tracking them now.”

Your mouth is still heavy with sleep, but you swing out of bed like you’re ready to run a marathon.

“Where is he?”

“Outside Greenbrook, heading towards Vancouver by the looks of it.”

“How far from here?”

“You’d be best off trying to intercept him at Vancouver, which is eight hours from here.”

“Alright.” You’re already pulling on your jeans, throwing on a sweatshirt and fishing your boots out from the closet. “Send me everything you’ve got and I’ll be on my way. I owe you a big one. Whatever you want, promise.”

“When are you planning to go?” He seems taken aback by your eagerness.

“As soon as possible,” you say. “Maybe within the hour.”

“You’re really going?”

You exhale out your nose impatiently. “You knew that, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d really…”

There’s a pause, and then:

“Listen, Haru, just humor me for a second here. What are you planning to do when you find it? What if the thing has built-in weaponry? A detonator? You have no idea what you’re getting into.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The android. What are you planning to do with it?”

“I’ll figure it out. I just need to get to him first.” You put him on speaker as you grab some coffee.

“There isn’t _time_. If it tries to attack, you’ll need a plan ahead of time.”

“He won’t. Why would he attack me?”

“Well, you’re there to capture it, aren’t you?”

You stop in your tracks. You’re aware, suddenly, of the misunderstanding.

“Haru?”

“What do you mean, ‘capture’?”

“Oh, what else could I possibly mean? Keep it as a pet?”

You realize with a sinking feeling that Neo thinks you’re going on a journey of vigilante justice, jumping the gun to help the SWAT guys lock Adams up. You realize that, a month and a half ago, when he asked if he was doing the right thing, he meant finding Adams’s coordinates in order to expose him.

You need to get Neo out of this as soon as possible.

But instead your mouth forms the words to a question, and you say, “What would you do with him?”

“I would report _it_ ,” says Neo dryly. “I would never go near the thing. And you shouldn’t either.”

“But what if—” You take a deep breath. “What if you know he’s sentient? What if you know he’s…”

“Human?” He makes a dubious noise. “Organics are made of the same stuff we are, but they’re not human. Don’t do something stupid, Haru.”

“Wait,” you say, knowing this is too much of a risk but needing him to understand. You tell him how you downloaded a mysterious app and connected with Adams, who turned out to be just one of many experiments meant to take the burden of Dr. Takala’s consciousness when his body failed. You tell him about the nerve-wracking three days you spent leaping at every noise your comm made, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night to find an urgent message awaiting your response. You describe the details: he has a dog named Blue, he apparently likes root beer, he wants to go somewhere warm after all this blows over. You realize as you speak that you are as much trying to convince yourself as Neo that you are about to do the right thing.

“He’s human,” you say. “He’s as human as you or me.”

When you glance at the screen you realize Neo’s already hung up on you. You don’t know how much he’s heard. With foreboding in the pit of your stomach, you set your destination for Vancouver and climb into your car, pull out of the parking lot.

* * *

 

Seven hours into the drive, you pull into a gas station so you can massage your eyes and take a brief nap. You’ve been falling asleep on the road for the past hour, but when you actually allow yourself to drift off, all you can see is the faceless face of a man you don’t know, innocent as a child’s and twisted away from the world in fear, his hands held out meekly as if to protect himself. You reach out as if to pull him – up or down, you don’t know – and your hand brushes water. You wake up to the sound of rain, arm still outstretched.

* * *

 

It’s still raining when you arrive, the icy drops close enough to snow that each one raises goosebumps on your skin. It isn’t usually this cold during the spring. You flick on the wipers and squint out the tinted glass, a spider-webbed mess of slush and water. A sign reads “Welcome to Vancouver” on your right with the French just above in small letters, though it’s becoming increasingly impossible to read in this weather. The encroaching darkness isn’t helping either.

As you hover along the road, several police cars rush past. They’re traveling fast enough that the air whistles past you, sirens blaring their usual high, keening notes. You wonder if they’re looking for him.

Pulling up the GPS on your comm, you check the coordinates Neo gave you again, and are relieved to find he’s still in the city. You’re just about to round the corner when you notice a sopping wet husky trotting alongside the street, seemingly impervious to the honking of approaching cars. On an impulse, you park on the side of the road and open your door.

“Someone get that dog off the road!” someone shouts.

In your desperation, you call out the one word you hope will provoke a response: “Blue!”

The dog turns and barks at you. You’re not sure whether it’s responding to your tone or the word until it bounds towards you and leaps up, tail wagging.

“Is it you?” you ask, wishing the dog could answer. You swear it has an intelligent glint in its eye.

Then, before you can blink, it’s off again, barking at you as it weaves haphazardly down the rain-slick street.

 _This better work_ , you think to yourself. You scramble out of your car and dart after the retreating husky, feeling like Alice chasing after the white rabbit.

* * *

 

**_I’m going to ask a stupid question, friend. What does it mean to love? Please, when you hear this… Imagine that it isn’t a lost, confused robot asking you, but another human being. Someone your age, maybe._ **

**_Because I used to think that it was the joy of waking up in the morning – however few those mornings have been – and knowing you’ve been allotted another day. I used to think it was the absence of the Doctor’s face above me. The sun, the sky, the green little leaves heralding the spring. That was the best and strongest thing I felt for the first few months._ **

**_And then I thought it was the grief and horror of watching that car swerve and hit my brother again and again. The numbness that gave way to guilt, and finally to determined vengefulness. Love is its own kind of hate; borne of passion, it attaches itself to anything that moves. What could I be feeling, if this all-consuming passion wasn’t love? Could I have hated everyone and myself so completely if I didn’t love my brother?_ **

**_Now… I think I was wrong both times. Love isn’t in the living or the dying, but the waiting. It’s waiting for something that might never come, might not even exist. It’s the moments we forget about, the details we never noticed while we were lost in thought. It’s a star in the night sky, a voice in the dark._ **

**_It’s you, friend._ **

**_Thank you._ **

* * *

 

After you receive Adams’ latest message, you feel carved out from the inside. A weight settles on your heart, joyous and oppressive at the same time, and utterly unshakeable. You don’t know what to do so you crouch down in the middle of the road, bury your face in your knees. Blue trots back when he realizes you aren’t following, and you reach for him, squeezing a startled yelp out of him.

“I’m worried about him,” you say in a voice that sounds like tin, scratchy and false even to your own ears. You wince at the tone. “I mean it, Blue. Can you understand? I’m not… I’m not good at saying the right thing. I don’t usually say much, period. But for _his_ sake, I want to say every last thing there is to say. God… I don’t know why I’m talking to you.”

Blue licks your hand and trots forward. He looks back with a questioning look.

You want to follow him, but the words keep coming.

“This is weird, isn’t it? I guess it is. But how could anyone understand what it’s like to have the world on your shoulders? I mean, could _you_ listen to that voice speak pure poetry and not want to give it everything it asks for? Could you disappoint a soul like that? I couldn’t, I couldn’t! I’m being utterly irrational, I know…”

You look at the heather-gray sky.

How dare he give you this? How dare he make you feel incomplete?

* * *

 

Neo calls you at 11 PM almost on the dot. He doesn’t yell, which is promising.

“Where are you?” he demands, as his opener, and you wipe your eyes hastily as if caught in the act.

“Vancouver,” you say. You know you sound like you’ve just had a good cry, but you’re too tired to care.

“Find him?”

“No.”

“Well, let me know when you do.”

“Aren’t you the one who wanted to stop me?” You shift your comm to the other shoulder as you peer out from under wet lashes at what must be the four-hundredth city-gray building. “You said he might be dangerous.”

“He might.”

“You don’t sound awfully concerned.”

“But I am,” he says, and strangely a defensive note creeps into his voice.

“You’re not going to stop me?”

Neo exhales loudly in exasperation. “How am I supposed to stop you? Call the police on you? You know even that wouldn’t deter you.”

“You’re right; it wouldn’t.”

“So quit questioning me and do your thing.”

“What are you going to do?”

There is a brief silence, no more than a second, but it feels ominous.

“I’m going to wait,” he says.

* * *

 

Blue follows you, nudging you this way and that, pressing his snout into your hand, until you’re standing in front of a deserted parking lot. The rain has slowed to a drizzle, but fog hangs over the purple-flecked tarmac like a shroud. There are very few cars in the lot now; it must be close to midnight, long after the shops have closed. Never has the _absence_ of people been so tangible – you feel as if you have stumbled across a twilight zone, devoid of life and frozen in time.

Blue woofs softly as if to encourage you.

“Did you bring me on a wild goose chase?” you ask, ruffling his fur. “There’s nobody here.”

But then you see his back. He is clothed in semi-darkness, almost out of sight, head tilted to the sky.

You want it to be him. You are also afraid of what you might see.

You want to call out, say something, anything, but your tongue is stuck and your mouth feels sticky and glued shut. When you make a noise at last, it's somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

He turns. Slowly at first, then snaps his head to attention. You cannot read him; he is too far away. But he walks towards you slowly, passing in and out of the light, until he is almost within reach. His eyes are blue, bluer than ice, and they stare at you. Though he is the spitting image of Pyry Takala, his eyes are wide with surprise and perplexity and hope. The cruel, sharp nose is softer on him, the hooded eyes gentler. His lips part slightly, unconsciously, like a child.

Something breaks in you, then. You put your hand over your mouth.

“It’s you,” he says, but there’s a question mark in the way he hesitates.

You can only nod.

He stands with the same uncertainty. When he looks at you there is joy and fear intertwined – a vague curiosity, an overwhelmed expression close to tearfulness.

“You came back for me. You came to find me.”

You nod again, unable to speak.

He is tall, unwieldy in his motions, but you feel secure. Without thinking, you hug him, your face in his shirt. His breath stirs your hair ever so slightly. You smell pine and the mustiness of old clothing and you bury your nose in it. You rest your cheek against his chest and seek out his heart. When you find it, you count the beats, an indefatigable rhythm, an unsurpassable grammar.

* * *

 

For the time being, you manage to scrounge up enough to take a room at a motel 500 miles from home. Even though you can’t explain to yourself why, you avoid looking at him the entire way there. And he keeps his silence.

But then you close the door behind you and set your backpack down and all that remains is to meet his gaze. So you do, slowly, unsure which of you is more uncertain or afraid.

You try to take him in. He has the lightest brown hair – like feathers, you think, but twigs now that they’re wet with rain. He has a disarmingly open stare, the kind that someone his age should have learned to guard by now, that is offered freely only by children. He looks at everything just a beat too long, and smiles just a bit too hesitantly.

You’re just about to say something, anything to break the silence, when he startles you by speaking first.

“You’re not like how I imagined.”

You shoot him a look. “Really? How so?”

“I don’t know,” he says, not taking his eyes off you. “I’m not sure I ever conjured up a face for you. But I didn’t think you’d look quite so… so…”

You wait, unsure of what to expect.

“Kind.” And he laughs.

“Kind?”

“Yes… You’re looking at me intently—”

You avert your gaze and feel your cheeks burning.

“—but not in a bad way, I think. In a kind way.”

“What do you mean, in a kind way?”

“Well, you’ve got a crinkle in your brow right here.” His finger leaves your skin cold. “And you’re looking at me as if you want something from me. But you’re also smiling a bit.”

You run your hand through your hair. “I guess I’m not the only one who’s staring intently.”

“No, I—” He stops suddenly and colors. “Should I stop?”

Watching this man who, by all appearances, must be thirty years old struggle with himself like a schoolboy is at once so ludicrous and so charming that you burst into laughter.

“No, don’t stop,” you say. “Stare at me as long as you want. I don’t mind.”

He grins at you, exposing the gap where his tooth is missing – near the back of the right side, and not so noticeable as long as he doesn’t open his mouth.

“Thank you,” he says, trailing off, and you realize he’s waiting for your name.

“Haru. Haru Yamada.”

“Nice to finally meet you, Haru.”

“Nice to meet you too,” you say, but you’re getting a little lost in his eyes.

* * *

 

Two hours later, you wake up with a start.

The TV is still on, filling the silence with a low, comforting buzz. The two of you are lying on the only bed in the room, a cramped affair meant for one.

You don’t remember curling up around him, but your limbs are hopelessly entangled, with his bare feet surprisingly warm against your legs, his arm draped over you like a blanket. The moonlight filtering through the blinds colors his face blue and you’re tempted to touch his lips, just to make sure he’s still breathing.

But as soon as you reach out, his eyes open. There is no fluttering of the lids, no sudden intake of breath or sleep-grumbling, not the slightest bit of grogginess. He’s asleep, and then suddenly he’s awake. In the unholy hours between dreaming and waking, it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Is it morning?” he asks, exhaustion in his voice.

“No,” you whisper. “Sorry I woke you.”

It seems to take him a while to focus on you, but once he does, he smiles.

“Haru,” he says slowly, savoring each syllable. “Haru, Haru, Haru.”

The love blossoming in your chest makes it hard to breathe.

“I’m here,” you say.

The two of you face each other, kids passing secrets in the dark, strangers learning the shape of each other’s bodies for the first time.

“I was thinking,” you say, “that you should have a name. A real name.”

“Yeah? Why don’t you choose one for me?”

You shake your head. “It should be your choice. I can’t… I don’t think I should tell you what to say or do anymore, let alone decide what you call yourself.”

Adams turns onto his back, clasping his hands beneath his head. His voice is low but clear. “The way I see it, there are some things a person can never control – your name is one of them. I’ve had a lot of time to myself, a lot of time to think. I believe that being human is being free, but it’s also being born into circumstances you can’t control. How I was created and where and by whom… I will never be able to change that. And a name, the name given by parents to a child, always leaves its mark even if you try to scrub it away.”

You look at him in surprise. “You’ve really thought this through,” you say.

“As I said, I haven’t exactly lacked the time.” He smiles.

“I… I’ll need to think about it.”

“Take your time.”

“What do I call you right now?”

His eyes are piercing, colorless against the dawn. When he leans close, you smell pine needles and smoke, and underneath that, something all his own. Something like home.

“Whatever you’d like,” he says.

So you pull him closer and breathe it in his ear.

“My dear,” you say. “My heart. My love.”

And the shudder that runs through him is the most beautiful thing in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> a HUGE thank you to the light of my life, alyosha, and the dark of my life, tatra, for beta-ing this for me and enjoying the hell out of it in the google doc comments. i couldn't have done this without you ❤️
> 
> and thank YOU, dear reader, for your support. kudos, comments are very much taken to heart.
> 
> you can find me on twitter @karamazovas and on tumblr as arkvdy.


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